“So that’s how it goes, huh? You hold some kind of grudge against a man who wrote something you didn’t agree with. And now that he’s dead it’s payback time.”
“I’m doing my job, Mr. Restic,” Detective Lopez icily replied.
“Sure you are. Probably going to phone it in.”
“Listen, I know you’re upset,” he said.
“Oh, come on. Don’t try and take the high road with me, Detective. My friend wasn’t perfect but he did his job well and that’s all he was doing. He deserves better.”
“Which is exactly what he’s going to get. We’re going to work equally hard no matter who the deceased is.”
In his words was a condemnation — Mike may not have been worthy of the hard work they were going to put into finding his killer but they would do it anyway.
“No wonder everyone hates cops,” I muttered under my breath.
Detective Ricohr stepped in and led me off to the side of the street before the confrontation escalated any further.
“Mind if we sit?” he asked. “It’s my feet again.”
I joined him on the curb. We sat there in silence for a few minutes and watched the proceedings like spectators.
“Nice speech,” Ricohr said, breaking the silence. “I’m not sure if you were trying to get them to work harder or to get them to blow you off entirely.”
“I’m sorry, Detective. I lost my temper. He didn’t deserve all the things I said.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“No, I think I owe him an apology.”
Detective Ricohr told me to forget it.
“Five years ago,” he began, “Detective Lopez and seven men in his precinct were accused of using department resources for weekend benders to Vegas. Not only did they take unauthorized vehicles, they used the sirens to clear the way during patches of traffic. I am sure I don’t need to tell you that hookers were also involved. It all came out in excruciating detail in your friend’s column. Detective Lopez got off relatively light but it did cost him a few years. I guess his ass is still a little chapped about it.” Detective Ricohr looked around conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone this, but I was a fan of his column.”
“Really?”
“It pissed me off to no end, but it was good.”
“That’s probably the best compliment anyone could pay him.”
Detective Ricohr stretched his legs then pulled them back in. He rested forearms on his knees and spoke into the ground.
“The coroner took your friend back downtown. Is there anyone we need to alert? Family?”
I shook my head. “His mom died years ago.”
“Was he married?”
“No.”
The long silence sank in.
“Do I have to do it?” I asked him.
“Not if you don’t want to. It’ll make it easier for us if you do, though.”
I looked around at the flat expanse of windowless cinderblock and brick buildings with their loading docks and chain link fences topped with barbed wire. Every inch of land was entombed in concrete and asphalt and yet there was an unintentional beauty about it. The lulling rush of the distant freeway traffic was the only sound in the otherwise quiet, still air. It was a very peaceful place at that moment.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s go.”
* * *
The only time I had ever felt death was with my father. I had seen it before but had never actually felt the emptiness like I did when he died. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three months prior and his descent was almost immediate. It was like a gust of wind had blown a sheet of paper off the desk and it fell precipitously to the floor. It was decided that his final days be spent in hospice, rather than in the cold, inanimate room of Mass General. We set him up in his own bed and he lay there in a morphine haze. I was with him that morning when he unexpectedly woke up and he looked at me with a lucidness I hadn’t seen in weeks. It was as if that sheaf of paper interrupted its descent and curled back up, suspended in the air for just a moment. We stared at each other for a few minutes. I had never seen him so afraid. Then that paper settled quietly on the floor.
I sat in the bar at Union Station and watched the office workers scrambling to catch their trains that would take them back to Orange County. I couldn’t stop thinking about that morning with my father. It was that look of fright on his face — an expression I hadn’t seen again until earlier today.
The coroner’s building was at the intersection of Mission and Workman, not far from the interchange of the I-5 and I-10 freeways. The burgundy brick structure sat in the shadows of a modern parking garage on its left and towering pine trees on its right. The front steps were flanked by old fashioned lamps with those giant, white globes that made it feel like a local library. Entering the lobby, I expected a cheery volunteer to tell me where the card catalogue was located. Instead, I was led down a long corridor to a viewing room not far from the refrigerators that held all of the bodies.
Detective Ricohr guided me through the entire procedure of identifying Mike’s body. It was a blur, except for that look on his face. The day after my father passed away I decided to ask Claire to marry me. Sitting there in the train station, I had that same fear as when I had made that decision — a fear of never wanting to be alone.
Train stations at dusk have a weary sadness about them. All these people rushing off to some place far away, usually with someone waiting for them on the other end. No one ever speaks to each other. They just hurry about with a nervous energy, knowing that if they miss the train another hour will be lost that they can’t get back again.
“… I’m sorry,” Cheli whispered as we hugged.
The waiter came over, but she waved him off.
“So what do they have?” I asked.
Cheli studied me and probably wondered if it was prudent to start talking details of the case. But it was. I was desperate for the details.
“He was shot with a 9mm. We know that much from the casing found underneath the car. There aren’t a lot of leads on his cell phone. All the calls leading up to the murder were to you or to his office. The detectives are following up on the other ones now but there isn’t a lot of hope it will bring much.”
“What do you think of this Detective Lopez?”
“Well, he doesn’t think much of you.”
“Yeah, I lost my cool for a minute.”
“I think he’s a good detective.”
I would have felt better with Ricohr.
“So his cell phone was still in the car. His wallet?”
Cheli nodded.
“Then it wasn’t a robbery.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” she corrected.
“It has to be connected to The Arroyo.”
“Chuck, we can’t know that.”
“Come on, what else could it be? They should be checking every building in that area for some connection back to Valenti and his crew. They are probably building another concept mall or some equally useless development.” I was angry at that old man and his manipulation of the strings that ran Los Angeles. “Are you at least going to talk to them?”
Her silence was my answer.
“It’s not pointing that way,” she said cryptically.
“Which way is it pointing?”
“Did you ever see Mike use any illicit substances?”
“Drugs?” I laughed. “Not unless you count Bushmills.”
“In a search of the car, the police found a small bag of OxyContin, about ten pills. They already checked his records and Mike didn’t have a prescription for them.”
“This is crazy. Mike wasn’t popping pills.”
“Unfortunately, it’s looking that way,” Cheli said apologetically. “He was murdered a block off the 10 Freeway. It’s common in that area to have the buy take place right close to the off-ramp. His window was down so he was speaking to someone —”
“Let me guess. Detective Lopez’s theory?”
“His wallet was out and pi
lls were on the floor,” she cut in. “Chuck, you may not want to believe the story but the details are telling us you should consider it. You know Mike —”
“Yeah, he wasn’t addicted to pain meds.”
“He has been after this story for weeks. You said it yourself that he drives himself into the ground when he gets a good story. Maybe he wants to come back down after charging hard for so long. Maybe he’s been addicted all this time but he hid it from you. How well do you really know him, Chuck? We all think we know each other but in reality we know so little.” She was starting to convince me, and I hated myself for it. “I’m not saying it’s true. I’m only saying you need to consider the possibility.”
“So you believe it, too.”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But it’s not for me to decide. I’m not on the case, remember. This is L.A. Homicide, not Glendale. I’m just a bystander, like you.”
I couldn’t tell if Cheli’s frustration was born out of an inability to help me or because she was sidelined in a case that mattered. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.
“I’ll take that drink now,” she said to no one in particular and looked around the bar for the waiter. When we both had fresh drinks we raised our glasses in a toast to Mike. The din of the station had died down to a gentle murmur, the overhead squawking of train delay announcements diminished. The summer sun dimmed in the windows and the wall sconces clicked on and cast the entire room into an orange light.
“What if this entire thing was just a frame-up?” Cheli asked.
“In what way?”
“We keep thinking there is a hierarchy involved. Temekian is connected to Langford, who used him as the muscle to get the terms of deals he needed. Langford and your wife are in turn at McIntyre’s beck and call. And eventually it all leads up to Valenti. But what if it didn’t lay out that way? Maybe Langford and the Vor weren’t so closely linked. Perhaps Temekian took his orders straight from McIntyre or even from the very top of the food chain. We assumed that Langford was killed over a deal that went sour, or when he grew uncomfortable with the terms of some deal. But what if Temekian was ordered to dispose of Langford? And taking that thinking to its natural end, what if he was ordered to dispose of Ed and Mike?”
“But Temekian couldn’t have killed Mike,” I said. “He’s in jail.”
Cheli’s eyes narrowed; her cheeks burned a little red.
“He was released on Wednesday,” she said.
“He was? Why?”
“Because the D.A. didn’t think we had enough to get a conviction,” she said and I could tell it pained her to admit it. “That’s why she called me into her office. She said we jumped the gun on the arrest.” Although she used the plural article it was clear that criticism was directed solely at her. “I’m going to get that bastard if it’s the last thing I do.”
“So Temekian did have the opportunity to kill Mike. But I don’t know how we can link him.”
“We can link the two murders by running a ballistics test on the gun that killed Langford with the one that killed Mike. If it was the same shooter, he may have used the same gun.”
“How likely is that?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
WHISPERING PINES
At the very south end of Glendale, on a series of rolling hills dotted with acacias, black oaks, and towering pine trees, sits an expansive cemetery. A century ago the vision of a dreamer turned these scrabbled hills into a peaceful stretch of land with more shade per square inch than anywhere in the city outside of a parking garage. Ponds were well-stocked with cattails and wading birds. Statuary dotted the landscape with endless portrayals of nymphs and cherubs and other half-naked figures. It was a fabricated landscape that felt as authentic as anything Walt Disney could have dreamed up.
I grew up dreading cemeteries with their tall granite walls dripping green-grey with moss and their headstones fighting hopelessly against the pull of gravity. But here you were told to find inspiration, literally. Each knoll was themed and clearly marked with signage to clue the visitor, and permanent member, where they were. “Sunrise Slope” naturally faced east towards the dawn of day. “Everlasting Love” stood in the shadow of sturdy, 100 year-old oaks, while “Slumberland” was a quiet recess nestled on the northern slope where you had to strain your ears to hear even the faintest trace of traffic noise. “Babyland” was a stretch no one should ever have to visit in their lifetimes.
Mike’s final resting place was in a section called, “Wee Kirk O’ The Heather” which shared the name with one of the early and famous wedding chapels in Las Vegas. Mike would have found that amusing. An aunt on his mother’s side picked it out and made all the arrangements. Mike didn’t have any close family, and I was grateful that this sweet woman did all of the planning. There was a short service in a small stone church that was said to be patterned off some famous village landmark in Scotland. It held ninety but fifteen showed up. You could easily spot his journalist friends with their extended waistlines, sallow skin, and suits that looked like they had been rolled in a ball and stored in a steamer trunk. There was little fanfare around Mike’s murder, despite his being somewhat of a public figure. He was a legitimate journalist for a small time rag. Perhaps if he were a fixture on the local channels he’d have a larger showing.
After the service, the small group of mourners moved outside where a perfectly dug hole awaited us. I marveled at how precise the sides of the hollowed-out earth were and wondered what kind of machine was used to create that. A few more words were spoken and then the casket was lowered slowly into the ground. More words, a few spoonfuls of dirt from a pristine hand trowel, and the whole thing was over.
Mike’s elderly aunt thanked me for coming and apologized for having to rush off. She lived in Lancaster and wanted to get on the road before traffic hit. Soon enough it was just me and the groundskeepers. Out of respect, they patiently waited for the entire party to disperse before concluding the job. I headed back to my car to give them the space they needed to finish burying my friend. Leaning against the hood of my car was Detective Ricohr.
“You were right,” he said. “The bullets match.”
I studied his face. “What else?” I asked.
“The lab came back with some partial prints on the bag that held the pills. They won’t hold up in court but it’s enough to the ID the person.”
“Temekian?”
“We have a warrant out but he’s disappeared. He won’t get far.”
“When you find him, put the screws to him. I bet he gives up Valenti,” I said.
“There’s no proof of any link between them,” he reminded me.
“He’ll talk. Trust me.”
“Let’s just find him first. I’ll let you know when I know something,” he said walking off. That’s when I saw Claire. She must have been standing there for a while.
“Did you stay for the service?” I asked.
“I watched it from the road. I’m sorry, Chuck,” she said, tugging at her shirt sleeve. “When I heard about it I wanted to call you but, I don’t know…I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me. When we last talked, I…I said some things that I regret. I know you were his friend and I’m sorry.”
“I’m glad you came,” I told her. That seemed to put her a little at ease. She leaned against the car by me.
“What is all this mess? All these people dying?”
“I don’t know. The police are still trying to figure it out.”
“Do you think Valenti is involved?”
“Yes, but no one really knows,” I replied.
“I can’t fathom how he could be,” she said but her tone said she was starting to believe it. “You need to walk away and let the police handle it. Or you’re just going to get yourself killed.”
“I’ll be all right.”
We stayed there for a few moments, taking in the expanse of manicured lawns that seem to roll effortlessly off each hill. Down a short distance was a row of ma
jestic pine trees that swayed gently in the afternoon breeze.
“What a strange place,” she said.
* * *
Temekian seemingly melted away in the summer sun. Rumors abounded that he slipped out of the country through Mexico and was back in Armenia or Russia, but none of the rumors could be substantiated. Cheli gave me updates when she had them but after the first few days they grew less frequent to the point where two weeks later when we met we barely talked about it.
“They’re freezing me out,” she told me after the second glass of wine. I knew Cheli was in a sour mood the moment she arrived at my apartment. It took my asking her for a progress report on Temekian to bring it all out.
“Who is?” I asked.
“Everyone. Ricohr, that fat tub Lopez, the feds. They’re all fucking me over.” I stayed silent to allow time for her to cool down. Instead, she looked at me contemptuously. “You don’t like this side of me, do you?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. I don’t like it either, but you do what you have to in order to succeed,” she said in an attempt to explain herself.
“I’m having trouble following you.”
“They took me off the case,” she blurted out, “and assigned some idiot to take my place.”
“Which case?”
“The Temekian case. They say the Feds wanted to take lead because of a Medicare fraud angle, but I know they wanted results and apparently I wasn’t able to deliver them. I think that D.A. had it in for me. There was room for only one chick on that job and she didn’t want me taking all the camera time. Not that she was camera-ready,” she added nastily. “I guess I deserved it for jumping the gun with the Temekian arrest. Someone in my situation can’t be making mistakes like these for long.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“Am I?” she shot back.
“Yeah, and it’s crossing over into self-pity. That’s the side of you I don’t like,” I added.
At least I managed to eke a smile out of her.
“I want to get drunk, Chuck. Will you get drunk with me?”
“Sure.”
I moved to the kitchen to open another bottle.
Smile Now, Cry Later (Chuck Restic Mystery Book 1) Page 16
